The Smile – Foreign Spies / Zero Sum Review

Cutouts is a short while away; in the meantime, there is plenty to dissect. The Smile has raised more questions than answers and with Radiohead playing together, presumably for a tour, it feels like Foreign Spies and Zero Sum, a double release to promote their sudden, third album, is an afterthought. There is no shaking it though many of the decisions made by The Smile as of late are out of their hands. Dropping out of festivals to deal with an illness is no easy choice and in its place comes new music. Cutouts is likely of the same quality as the previous two releases, at least we can gauge a slice of it from the tremendous work heard on the singles so far. Foreign Spies / Zero Sum is a delicate double-bill from Thom Yorke and the gang before, it would seem, they step back into their old band.  

But The Smile has never been about the other band comprising Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and a select few others. They were independent of that sound and managed to keep their distance well. Foreign Spies / Zero Sum does the same. It feels more like a coincidence than a desire to change gears. Foreign Spies may be some of the strongest work The Smile puts out – and we can only speculate on whether there is to be a hiatus or a continuation of this longing, well-placed instrumental style. Their ambient charms are on point for this single, a light and breezy appeal to the Greenwood contributions pours through. Yorke is given a platform to work within the chimes and string sections, his voice just another part of this instrumental choir rather than a standout piece as it was in earlier songs. Allowing Yorke to fall back onto this bed of instrumentals is an envious moment for the band, one of their best can be heard on the elusive nature of Foreign Spies.  

Where Foreign Spies had the time to fall into its spiralling, storytelling moments, Zero Sum is the opposite. Tech-reliant terrors wash over it, Greenwood relegated to whirring, fractured pieces of guitar and overwhelmed by the electronica feel and shock tempo. Quality is abundant in this out-there, uplifting electronic flow from Yorke who dabbles in the suddenness of noise. It sounds as if it goes nowhere and yet says all it needs to, the out-there lyrics verging on the nonsensical enjoyable because of its Windows 95 references and the red flags. Overconfidence becomes the running theme of both singles, from the shadowy spies thinking they are one step ahead to the operating systems quickly discarded. 

Ultimately, more music from The Smile is a good thing. Yorke is in a creatively interesting pocket with these releases and the likes of Zero Sum hear him experiment. An established artist, around for as long as Yorke has been, stepping out of their comfort zone so frequently, must be applauded. We fear it will never happen again for those we hold in high regard but Yorke has consistently proved he is uncomfortable with sitting still, keeping firm with one sound or another. His jazzier inclusions on the previous albums with The Smile are enjoyable, but the erratic new swerve of Foreign Spies / Zero Sum is an interesting avenue to follow him down.